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The data reinforces the fact that, ultimately, the state of the economy and Americans' perception toward how the Obama Administration is handling it will be the dominant issue of the 2010 midterm elections.

(It is a fundamental fact of politics that barring some sort of catastrophic event -- Sept. 11, 2001, for example -- voters tend to vote with their wallets. Say what you will about the 2008 campaign but it's hard not to see the economic crisis of last fall -- and Sen. John McCain's unsteady response to it -- as the decisive moment of the race.)

At the moment, voters are uncertain about the economy and how Obama is doing to turn it around.

For example, 47 percent of the Quinnipiac sample approved of the president's handling of the economy while 46 percent disapproved. Those numbers are a far cry from the 57 percent who approved of Obama's efforts on the economy in March but an improvement from the 45 percent approve/49 percent disapprove in an August Q poll.

And yet, just 30 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the direction of the country while 69 percent are dissatisfied -- a question that isn't a direct corollary for the performance of the economy but given the economy's primacy as an issue in voters' minds is heavily affected by perceptions about it.

There are also conflicting signs of where the economy stands.

On the one hand, jobless claims dropped more than expected over the last week -- a sign, writes the Post's Frank Ahrens that "unemployment may be beginning to crest."

From a political perspective, the timing of any major improvements or declines in the state of the economy is critical. Voter perceptions about how the economy is doing are likely to be set by next summer (at the latest) so the growth or decline of the economy over the next six months will be especially important in shaping how it plays as an issue in the 2010 midterms elections.

“Well, duh. Of course, its a bit more complicated than that. For instance, unemployment still hasn't reached the levels we saw in Reagan's first term, in 1983, yet he managed to win 49 of 50 states the following year.”

However, unemployment was historically higher in Carter’s years as president than Bush’s years so you can’t go by straight up numbers, but rather proportional increase in unemployment (note I am not blaming Obama for the unemployment mess nor am I giving him any credit with helping the economy). I would also add that high inflation during Carter’s years also added to his problems helping Reagan capture 49 of 50 states.

Last spring, Social Security's trustees issued their annual report saying the system's outflow to recipients would begin exceeding inflow in 2016. The latest estimate -- from the Congressional Budget Office? Deficit payouts will put Social Security in the red beginning in the 2010 fiscal year just begun. This year. Maybe D.C.'s bevy of beautiful Democrats should set to cleaning Social Security's Augean Stable before messing with the nation's health care.

re: chris' constant carping on indepedents: 'Villagers" is the term for those who live in the echo chamber that is the Bubble:

"I was listening to all the gasbags drone on all day yesterday about how the "independents" are all unhappy with Obama and are probably going to vote for the Republicans again when just a couple of years ago they were all unhappy with Bush and voted with the Democrats. This was interpreted as news that Obama needs to tack right immediately to recapture them.

Does that make sense? Isn't the answer more logically that independents just habitually dislike whoever is in power that both parties are incompetent? Why else would they identify as independents in the first place?

I realize that the villagers think there is some sort of "median" moderate voter who believes that the answer to all of our problems lies somewhere between the positions of the two parties. But that's not necessarily the independent's position. They don't like either party true, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they yearn to split the difference. In fact, I suspect that a large number of them are apolitical people who don't really understand politics at all and simply reject whoever is in power when things aren't going well, without regard to party. (In fact, there is great social utility in rejecting party politics and proclaiming yourself unhappy with the whole set-up. Who can't relate to than on some level?) Many independents probably ideologically fall far enough outside the two parties that they can't consider themselves members of either --- libertarians, greens etc.

The number of independents out there is quite large and all national politicians need to reach them in elections in order to win. But the knee jerk assumption that they are always more moderate than everyone else is probably wrong. They might just be more cranky, more cynical, more uninformed, more skeptical or more impatient. There are a lot of reasons why someone might be an independent in American politics but I suspect that ideology is at the bottom of the list. "

"The Most Important Number in Politics Today[:] 42 It's still the economy, stupid, according to new national numbers out of Quinnipiac University that show that more than four in ten voters believe the economy is the most important problem facing the country."

Well, duh. Of course, its a bit more complicated than that. For instance, unemployment still hasn't reached the levels we saw in Reagan's first term, in 1983, yet he managed to win 49 of 50 states the following year.

"A Pennsylvania woman who drew national attention for carrying a loaded handgun to her daughter’s soccer game has been shot and killed in an apparent murder-suicide, the Lebanon Daily News reports.
Meleanie Hain, 31, of Lebanon, Pa., and her husband, Scott Hain, 33, were found dead after a two-hour standoff with police Wednesday night, the AP reports.

Hain was dubbed the ‘pistol-packin’ mom’ after wearing her holstered 9mm Glock pistol to her 5-year-old daughter’s soccer match in 2008.

***
The Lebanon Daily News says Lebanon police Chief Daniel Wright is providing little information aside from acknowledging that both were found dead and that he did not think anyone else was involved. The district attorney likewise refuses comment. The paper quotes several neighbors as saying they heard or saw the couple’s children’s running from the house screaming, “Daddy shot Mommy!” shortly before the 911 was called.

The paper also quotes one neighbor, Debbie Mise, as saying she feared something bad would eventually happen at the Hain home. “She just wasn’t right,” Mise said of Meleanie Hain, the paper reports. “You don’t bring a gun to a kids’ soccer game, and you don’t wear a gun when you go shopping at Kohl’s.”

OBAMANOMICS TOO EASILY MOLDED BY THE MONIED CLASSES AT THE EXPENSE OF HIS OWN POLITICAL BASE

Obama's internationalist bent, his trust in bankers and the very economic cabal that got us into this mess, plays against the interests of working men and women and his own professed concern for the disadvantaged and the exploited.

POTUS should listen more to the unions and to his one-time mentor, Ralph Nader, and less to the "one-worlders" who are making America a slave to "free" trade, the international bankers, and Red Chinese financiers.

• A genocide-politicide hiding in plain sight, enabled by law enforcement, the military, and security/intel agencies of the federal government -- America's horrific shame.

ATTENTION A.G. HOLDER/POTUS/VPOTUS:

Where is the DOJ Civil Rights Division investigation into the covert deployment of silent, harmful, injury- and illness-inducing, neurologically damaging microwave and laser directed energy weapons systems on unjustly targeted Americans and their families by a Bush-legacy federal-local "multi-agency coordinated action program" that continues to commit civil and human rights violations under Team Obama...

there is a group of [mostly] former posters from here -- indeed, most of them are gone for good but i still return sometimes -- who left because they got tired of scrolling past the gibberish.

i can ask the group if you can join, if you are interested. it's gotten pretty big now, and we have much better discussion without the crap here. it's too bad chris won't remove the small number of idiots here, when so many people have left because of them, but he doesn't seem to want to do that.

Back on topic, I agree that the growth or decline of the economy over the next six months will be especially important in shaping how it plays as an issue -- God forbid we have a terrorist attack on Wall Street -- here in California, at least, recovery is going to take much longer than six (6) months.

Stewart to Obama: "I know you have a lot on your desk plate. But as a thin man who smokes, you may not understand the concept. All that stuff you've been putting on your plate, it's f***ing chow time, brother. That's how you get things off of your plate. "

The Olympics only helped reinforce the punch line. The president went to Copenhagen to rally for his hometown. Analysts assumed that the White House was in on a secret. The president could tip the vote? But Chicago lost on the first round. The president looked powerless.

Soon Maher came to his key point: "You're skinny and in a hurry and in love with a nice lady, but so is Lindsay Lohan. And just like Lindsay, we see your name in the paper a lot but we're kind of wondering when you're actually going to do something."

"When you look at my record it's very clear what I've done so far and that is nothing. Nada. Almost one year and nothing to show for it."

But the change maker has not made change--at least not on the hard fights, not yet. Hillary Clinton once asked why Obama "can't close the deal." Her dig is now a punch line. And most people get the joke, except CNN.

This week CNN actually ran a segment fact checking the Obama SNL skit. Bush and Palin may have wondered why CNN never came to their defense. But then, where's the humor in that?

As Garry Trudeau, of "Doonesbury" fame, told one reporter, "For something to be funny, the audience has to be in a position to sense the truth of it." And SNL's lampoon of Obama was funny.

Perhaps Congress should have taken a closer read at Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman's NYTimes columbs which clearly stated much more money was required than the Green Jobs, the Wars... The Economy. All of these problems are Inter-Connected.

How many Americans are capable of stepping back and seeing the Big Picture?

What do the polls say about THE BIG PICTURE?

Also these problems didn't happen over night. Naturally they won't be fixed over night either. Axl Rose said it best: "All we need is just a little patience."

there is a group of [mostly] former posters from here -- indeed, most of them are gone for good but i still return sometimes -- who left because they got tired of scrolling past the gibberish.

i can ask the group if you can join, if you are interested. it's gotten pretty big now, and we have much better discussion without the crap here. it's too bad chris won't remove the small number of idiots here, when so many people have left because of them, but he doesn't seem to want to do that.

The administration repeatedly demanded that the recovery act be judged on the standard economic measures, unemployment being one. I'm willing to wait for it. Not sure why any improvement next summer or thereafter doesn't count, why my mind must be made up.

That is the problem, isn't it.
Some people here have taken the step of communicating directly (please email your thoughts to xxx@xxx.com), but it takes posting an email address here that one would be willing to kill should some unwanted guest arrived.

"After taking control of the House in 2006 -- and again when President Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 -- Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) boasted that lawmakers would work four or five days a week to bring change to America.

"But midway through Obama's first year in office, Hoyer's House has settled into a more leisurely routine. Members usually arrive for the first vote of the week as the sun sets on Tuesdays, and they're usually headed back home before it goes down again on Thursdays."

"President Obama's national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan does not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday.

This was not Romney any more than Obama is responsible for what is happening now, or is he? Lets put it this way, what Governor of Massachusetts provided for growth of living wage jobs together with lower cost of living and lower taxes?

Levi Johnston has laid bare life with the Palin family. Now he's about to expose much more – himself.

Rex Butler, a lawyer for the 19-year-old father of Sarah Palin's grandchild, says it is a "foregone conclusion" Johnston will pose nude for Playgirl and is now getting gym-ready three hours a day, six nights a week, working out with an Anchorage body builder, the Associated Press reports.

Yesterday marked the anniversary of American boots on the ground in Afghanistan. Eight years into the war, the U.S. effort is adrift. Those who expected decisive action on Afghanistan from President Obama will have to keep waiting. The president told a group of congressional leaders on Tuesday that he will not approve a significant reduction in troops in Afghanistan (whatever "significant" means) and remains undecided on whether to authorize a troop increase.

liberal decisiveness and leadership

********NEWS FLASH**********
President Obama hires Whoopi Goldberg as a new czar....she says Afghanistan is not a real war-war.
****************************

WASHINGTON -- Every criminal operation has its code of silence. The Mafia enforces omerta. Bad cops erect their blue wall of silence. And Democrats running Congress have their "motion to refer." That was the slimy tool Speaker Nancy Pelosi wielded on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday to cover up for her tax-dodging top committee chairman, Charlie Rangel. In a convoluted parliamentary charade, Democrats voted in nearly lockstep to thwart a resolution

If Romney's record as governor is bad, his business record may be even more troubling. Romney made a personal fortune running a management consultant company that developed a reputation for milking "jaw-dropping" consulting fees out of companies, sometimes just shortly before those companies collapsed and workers lost their jobs. [Los Angeles Times, 12/16/07] Romney also advised companies on how to use offshore tax havens to "avoid paying U.S. taxes." [Los Angeles Times, 12/17/07]

Leaders in the House and Senate have a plan to pass President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care plan by Thanksgiving without any significant participation by the American public. CNS News has confirmed the details in our September 22nd titled “Passing a Shell of A Bill: Congress’ Secret Plan to Ram Through Health Care Reform.”

Congress: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been asked repeatedly to put the proposed health care bill on the Web. They've refused. Do they have something to hide? Even Democrats have asked their leadership to put the bill online at least 72 hours before a vote, so that any American can read the 1,000-plus-page monstrosity.

I'm one of the growing number of lefties who has all but had it with Obama. But.
America won't be putting Republicans in power for many years. R candidates who can manage leadership and money can't pass the bigot gauntlet and the ones who can pass the bigot test can't manage their way out of a paper bag.

I think the changes in housing regulation under Clinton (changes that Bush embraced because they hid the lack of any economic growth during his 8 year administration)would have been entirely workable if Bush hadn't been so dedicated to removing all oversight of the financial industries.

There was nothing wrong with encouraging broader home ownership until the financial industry saw it as a new village to ransack while the government looked the other way. The laws were passed under Clinton; the pillage occurred under Bush and his Free Market.

Perhaps voters really are as simple-minded as you suggest, and will forget by next year that all our economic problems were CREATED by the Bush administration and so-called 'conservative' policies like deregulating the financial industry.

Why they could expect Obama to clean up a mess that took a decade to create in a year is beyond me.

If a contractor burned down your house, would you hire him to rebuild it? That's what we would be doing by putting republicans in power again. We just can't afford it.